Does setting my voltage to 100% cause harm even if my gpu is running cool

[MrHatandClogs]

I've read some mixed forums on voltage being a card killer over time but i'm curious if that's only because it makes the card run hotter. I just built my first pc and it's caseless atm, my cpu is an i5 6500 and gpu is a Zotac GTX 1060 6gb. When I play gta v for a few hours my card can get up to 75c and doesn't go any higher, but since my pc is caseless and it's winter i decided to put a tube from my window straight in front of my gpu fan. It's roughly 17-22 degrees out and when I do this and play gta v or any other game for extended periods of time the temps never reach over 45c. So basically my question is am I hurting my card have voltage set to 100%, even though the gpu never goes over 50c under max load. Also, when I game i check the "Force Constant Voltage" is MSI Afterburner. Thank you, and sorry for the long post.

In case anyone was wondering
http://imageshack.com/a/img924/9969/BStsdo.jpg
http://imageshack.com/a/img921/9563/TTEdKN.jpg

 

[wbattel4607]

I like what you did with the tube because I would have done the same thing 😉 but please put your components into a case before they're damaged- it can happen fairly easily.

In response to your question, high temps are (typically) more dangerous than high voltage (which usually causes high temps). I have a GTX 1070 overclocked but I have not needed to touch voltage to get very nice clock speeds. Generally, increasing voltage usually is not required for increasing clock speed up to a certain point. The worst you are risking with voltage increases is instability and a highly negligible degree of component ware that would reduce card lifespan by a hardly noticeable degree. Read this thread for further insight. Good luck

 

[photonboy]

Hi,

Your GPU doesn't start being throttled until about 83degC, so you aren't gaining any performance by adding that cool air.

I would personally put your computer back together, and just make sure you have at least one fan intake and one fan exhaust and run things like normal.

As for VOLTAGE there is a tool I use for EVGA which you may or may not have. This tool optimize the frequency vs voltage.

*I don't know exactly what you did, but I would go back to default settings now if unclear what you changed. If you set the voltage to its maximum value at all times then it won't help or hurt likely but when you eventually get WARMER temperatures your card will run hotter than it needs to then you are going to lose performance.

(Increasing the voltage WILL wear out the GPU faster so I should have said "can hurt" though based on your setup I don't think it will reduce the lifespan by enough to matter to you)

 

[photonboy]

http://www.evga.com/precisionxoc/

Click on the THIRD picture.

I don't know if Zotac has similar software, or if you can even find a copy of EVGA's (perhaps even MSI's?) software but I'll tell you how it works.

Voltage adds heat.
So I can click "manual" and for several minutes this software stresses the GPU at different frequency levels. It finds where data is corrupted than back off a bit.

So it's using the MINIMUM amount of voltage needed to sustain a specific frequency. This can help reduce the TEMPERATURE. If the temperature gets too HIGH then you will get throttling down of the frequency.

Most of the GPU's don't have much overclock left anyway, but this is probably the best way to do it.

But again, cooling a GPU doesn't help when it's below the throttle point, and the only point in increasing voltage is if you are trying to stabilize a higher frequency.

If you haven't overclocked higher than raising the voltage does absolutely nothing for performance.